Danny Tenaglia Hopes to Produce Downtempo LP with Peter Daou

Back in October we Skyped with Danny Tenaglia about his rather brilliant Balance 025 mix CD. The release — his first DJ mix in six years — documents the legend’s gradual shift from the world of pumping house music to the subterranean world of techno. “I enjoyed doing this,” Tenaglia told us about the project. “I felt like it was reflective of recent travels and the new move.”

Our call with Danny Tenaglia was challenged by several technical glitches — Skype kept crashing for some reason — but Tenaglia was ever so patient. While going through some audio files we discovered a few moments toward the end of our conversation with Tenaglia which we thought hadn’t been recorded. Toward the end of our chat, I asked Tenaglia if he still had designs on producing another artist album. Tenaglia said he wasn’t interested in retreading the creative ground he explored on releases such as 1995’s Hard & Soul but shared, “I still have hopes and dreams that I’m going to make an album with Peter Daou.”

Those of a certain age and/or musical aptitude will know Daou for his wealth of brilliant work as a keyboardist back in the day, performing and engineering seminal Nu Groove Records cuts like Bobby Konders‘ “The Poem” and co-helming The Daou with former wife Vanessa. In fact, Tenaglia collaborated with The Daou on 1993’s “Give Myself To You” released on Tribal Records, a truly magical track.

Although Daou left the music business years ago to pursue a career as a political consultant and social advocate, Teanglia says he hopes that one day they’ll be able to work on an album project together.

“Oh my god…you’ve got to go to his blog or Facebook. He tweets all day! He went from music with Vanessa [Daou], then they split and he went to Wall Street and started working for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton,” Tenaglia said. “He told me I’d have to drag him back into [music], and he makes jokes about him being lost in all that.”

Does Tenaglia think Daou will ever come around one of these days, allowing an opportunity for them to collaborate on music?

“I really do,” Tenaglia said. “I think that was always in my heart — that I’d like to do [music] with him one day. I used to say back in the ’90s when Kruder & Dorfmeister were coming out, banging them left and right, I’d say, ‘Peter, one day we have to do something like this.’ My roots are soulful and funky, not necessarily rap, but I would love to try to create beats like this, similar to what I did on my album with ‘World of Plenty’ and use my educational library [a reference his vast musical knowledge] that’s stored up here to influence and play him stuff that I love. This time I just want to keep it downtempo, chill out but, of course, have stuff that’s capable of remixes if it lends itself. I think it will happen one day.”